Broken Promises in a System -Memoirs of Barry Crouse Part 6

 

               I will now go into the Wilderness years 1999 -2003. I had just moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Portland, Oregon. I began looking for work and moved into a 1 bedroom apartment with my wife and dog Siberian Husky named Nick. I started looking for Computer Jobs despite my years of experience I was unable to get a job and had to look for manual labor so I worked at Labor Ready off and on. I also found a temp job at a Check and Cash store but that did not last long. I can remember my work at Labor Ready doing Construction work using a Jack Hammer and lifting concrete blocks also helping move Piannos up a flight of stairs with 5 other people. I would often come home caked in mud and skin burning because of skin irritation.

            I continued to look for work and collected unemployment, worked part time, and any other means at the time I had relatives in Portland, Oregon that tried to help me out every way they can. I would often have trouble paying the Rent because the money I received just wasn't enough to pay the Rent and grocery's.  My relatives talked to my parents and they asked them if I would move back to Missouri and I was promised a trailer home if I moved back there so I agreed. I moved to Missouri and looked for work and I began to work on Computers repairing them and began studying Novell Netware 5.0 and also wrote my first two copyrights 1999 -2000 subject was about MS-DOS. I made some money but just wasn't enough finally my Grandparents wanted me to leave after 3-4 months and we left. I can only speculate they hated my wife so I began looking to live in Canada. I had great difficulty driving through the cold weather snow and ice. I made it to Illinois and my car broke down. I had to give up my Dog Nick because I had no place to go or live. We had a bus take us to Detroit and were placed in a Homeless shelter. The sign had it written Welcome to Detroit scatched out Welcome to Hell ! I had to adjust to Homeless shelter living because I was white living in a black neighborhood and was not welcomed sometimes I was greeted by gangs the only thing that kept me alive was God was watching over me and my Kickboxing skills that a lot of gang members seen with their own eyes. I can remember a African American Church watched me workout in the church gym and they thought the same thing could have had a Pro Career. I often had threats on my life and it was difficult for me to understand Why do you hate me it was because I was White and so I received a hard lesson on Racism. I can remember on a bus a Black male came up to me and wanted to kill me for being White I had to explain this to my wife because this was foreign to her and she did not understand this ideology.  I found work at book stores and worked at a 30 hour job pulling 800 pounds of books on one sled by myself. I often looked at Canada across from Detroit and in fact visited Windsor Ontario. I worked on getting some certifications and received a Certification in Novell 5.0 and Cisco Network CCNA 2000 - 2001 and also worked on Crouse Ecommerce Stores promoting Online Retail across the world.

           If people that are reading this feel hurt, I am sorry but as I often said sometimes the truth can hurt us. People on the internet often say be thankful you did not get a Pro Fighting Career the problem is they are good at dispensing advice but when you wind up like this example you have very little choices in life no where to go or turn to.

            I can remember when I was working in a hotel I climbed a 20 foot ladder and was electrocuted and fell down the only things that saved me was my ability to break fall taught in Hapkido and somebody trying to catch me. I laid in my own blood passed out and the ambulance took me to the emergency room. I recovered and received some Workman's Comp and I used it to pay for a ticket out of hell. I would also liked to make another comment that I often receive on my youtube channel this is a clip regarding Rocky Balboa telling his son the world will beat you down that is true but you also had a place you can lay your head down at night so you were more lucky than I this is the Reality not a dreamworld some people live in or a great story line.